Vince Zampella has some really interesting things to say about Battlefield and its biggest competition, Call of Duty.
In an interview with IGN, Vince was asked if Battlefield could ever sell Call of Duty one day. He said this:
“If you look at the best Battlefields have outsold some Call of Duties and other way around, back and forth. So I think absolutely it can.
I mean, is that what we’re going for? I mean, not directly, but always. We’re not looking to take down Call of Duty. We’re making something that’s different and we’re making something that’s us. But yeah, it definitely has the possibility.”
IGN seemed to want to make a community note on this comment. As we do know, more Call of Duty games outsold Battlefield games, than there were Battlefield games that outsold Call of Duty games. But there’s something that IGN’s editorial didn’t remember here.
And that would be the fact that Vince Zampella was one of the co-founders of Infinity Ward. That’s the same Infinity Ward who made Call of Duty, and was contracted by Microsoft to make Call of Duty 2 for the Xbox 360. Vince was also in an executive position at Infinity Ward when they made Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
So, we won’t reexamine Zampella’s entire developer history here. But he is at the uncommon position of making Call of Duty‘s competition after having been one of the key figures in the creation and success of the Call of Duty franchise.
Mark Rubin is in a similar position, as a producer for Ubisoft’s XDefiant. But even with that taken into account, Zampella is still in a more high profile position, as a former head of Call of Duty’s main studio, and now in charge of that franchise’s competition.
And you knew that when Zampella was at the other side of the fence at Infinity Ward, he may have had concerns about the developers over at Digital Illusions CE.
It’s not that Zampella (or Rubin, for that matter) was in a position to share company secrets. At this point, he’s been gone from Infinity Ward for so long that he doesn’t really have anything valuable on that end. But it’s about EA employing one of the people who made Call of Duty to build the game plan to compete, and even beat, Call of Duty.
So can Vince Zampella believe he can get Battlefield to beat Call of Duty? Absolutely. There is more than hubris or overconfidence that’s driving that statement.
